


a beginner's guide to falling apart

by bluegalaxiess



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 05:54:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8389771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluegalaxiess/pseuds/bluegalaxiess
Summary: A UnderFell fic attempt...I might try to make a comic/animation out of this one, so that'll probably happen.This one's a little shorter, but I hope you still enjoyed it.





	

.: before :.

 

Nights are the worst.

 

The only sounds are the ticking of the clock in the hallway and the snow outside.

 

There is nothing to silence his mind.

 

At night, he can hear even the quietest of whispers, the smallest of voices. He can hear the loudest ones too, and nothing’s drowned out. 

 

They’re all talking at once, a messed-up jumble of feelings and secrets that makes his skull throb and the tears flow faster. The loneliness drowns him, bashes his frail and weak body like waves against the shore, until his head goes under and he can’t breathe.

 

 

He sits up, wrapping his arms around his knees and burying his face in the soft fur around his hood. It’s wet with tears, but he doesn’t care. They taste salty on his tongue. The long cracks spreading across the top of his head barely hurt anymore. In fact, nothing hurts anymore. He’s numb. 

 

 

He stays like that, legs curled to his chest and face buried in his arms. It’s still dark. Footsteps echo through the silence, loud ones with the familiar angry tone that he’s come to avoid. The monster heard his sobs. He pushes his face farther into his knees, now wet with tears, and hugs his legs even tighter. The door slams open, rattling the walls and making him screw his eyes shut. The blow came later than he thought it would, after he’d relaxed and had time to think maybe he wouldn’t be hit. He’s sobbing now, shielding his face with shaking hands and his body with legs pulled to his ribs. The voice rings in his head, low and dripping with hate and poison. You’re weak, you worthless piece of shit, so goddamn pitiful, how the hell are you my brother, you fucking idiot. 

 

 

The words somehow hurt worse. Blow after blow rains down on his body, but the words are what break him. He doesn’t even realize when it’s over. The silence is back, and he’s drowning in himself again. The dark corners of the room taunt him, repeating the same thing over and over, like a mantra of hate. You’re fucking worthless. You’re fucking worthless. You’re fucking worthless. He wants to scream, run, do something, anything, to make it stop. But he can’t.

 

There’s nowhere to go.

 

 

He slowly stands, legs shaking and bleeding. The hallway is dark, and he steps into it, being sure as to be absolutely silent. One wrong move, one sound, and the monster will awaken, slink out of his cave, and destroy him again. Destroy, and repair, only to destroy again. Like a child’s habit of pouring salt on snails. It’s a damn game to the monster. He’s got everything he could ever want; power, prestige, popularity. Boredom, ultimate boredom, sets in, and the only thing left to do is to break. Break him. 

 

 

The snow is cold, but it numbs his wounds. It’s loud enough to silence his mind, and freezing enough to ease his pain. Ice stings his face, the wind blows and he stumbles, pulling the heavy black coat around his thin frame and flipping up the hood to hide his face. Buildings loom in the distance. He hates the town, and it hates him. There’s nowhere to go.

 

 

Dark shadows chase him, yelling and laughing as he runs. A stone hits the back of his head, making him cry out and fall to his knees. His pursuers stand over him, cackling sadistically. Curled up in the snow, chills running through his bones, tears coming to his eyes and trailing down his face, drops of shimmering quicksilver. The figures morph together like ink running down paper, forming a tall, twisted shadow with a sick smile, kicking him over and over with one heeled boot. The monster’s laugh rings in his head, and he grits his teeth, forcing down a scream as a blow hits his head. 

 

 

A neon sign flickers above him, casting a red glow on the alley. The bricks he leans against are cold and scrape his arms as he pulls the black coat off and drapes it across the front of his body. The soft patter of rat’s feet and the sour smell of the alley. Shivering, he cries. 

 

He’s alone. 

 

 

The alley echoes his sobs of pain, bouncing them around and bringing them back to him. Footsteps are walking by the alley, entering the buildings in the town. Each crunching step of feet on the snow makes him cringe, shielding his face. 

 

 

It’s been a while. The monster will probably be wondering where his plaything is. Wondering, not caring. Not caring that he now cries in a dark alley among dirty snow and foul smells, losing what scraps of hope he held while blood drips down his wrists. He hugs his coat to his chest, leaving dark red stains on the material. The jagged lines don’t even hurt anymore, and he misses the pain. It made him feel like there was something that was real, something he could control. He made another each time it faded, not even flinching. He’s falling apart.

 

 

The wind’s louder up here. It tugs on his coat and twists through his bones, filling his chest with the cold air. The jagged stones below are tipped with ice, shimmering like diamonds and pulling at him with delicate hands. He closes his eyes, taking a half-step towards the edge of the precipice, the wind whipping the fur on his hood against his cheeks. The diamond hands trail gently along his face, making him lean into the wind and towards the fall. His eyes are fixed on a single point, far down in the jagged rocks, a black singularity that the world seems to bend around, a colorless eye he knows holds peace, freedom. His foot slides over the edge. He can feel the sharp edge of the stone through his shoe, and he draws it back. A sudden burst of fear shoots through his body. The diamond hands pull harder, grabbing at his coat and dragging him towards the peaceful fall. He turns away, staring into the snow behind him. The faint outline of the monster appears through the white haze, reaching out a hand and calling out to him. Telling him he’s sorry. Please don’t go. I love you, don’t leave.

 

He blinks. The monster’s gone. Nobody appeared through the snow, nobody told him to stay. He looks at the ground, where the snowy stone drops off into blackness and jagged rocks, where peace and freedom lay just beyond layers of dust. 

 

Tears come to his eyes. He reaches inside the pocket of his coat and brings out a crumpled piece of paper, a note scrawled on it in rough pencil.

 

boss,

 

i’m sorry. i know you aren’t, but i couldn’t bear it anymore. i know you don’t care about me the way i do, and that’s ok now. you don’t have to worry about me. you can go ahead and live without me. it’s alright to forget about me. i know you probably will. i wish you all the best, and i hope you know that. maybe it’ll get through that   
damn skull of yours now that you see it, but i love you, no matter what you did to me, and i always will, bro.

 

He clenches his fist, holding the note like a lifeline as a tear falls neatly onto the center, making the messy words bleed. He releases his hand, the paper floating to the snow and resting there, the edges curling slightly as the wind hits it. He takes a step away, standing just on the beginning of the cliff. He turns one final time, half hoping someone, anyone, will appear and tell him he’s loved, he belongs somewhere, he’s got something to live for. 

 

But nobody came.

 

 

The wind wraps him in a cold embrace. It plays with his coat and caresses his face, floating the stream of his tears towards the edge of the cliff. It’s shrinking. He falls, a strange calm coming over him as time seems to slow and he flies towards the singularity of peace, the lonely eye below him. He grows wings, the black feathers drifting around him as he stares upwards at the edge of the cliff, twirling and twisting in a dance of melancholy. A figure appears at the top of the cliff. It stands there, unmoving, as his crow’s wings fold around him, the feathers reaching like soft hands around his face. He could have sworn he saw the figure’s shoulders shake with sobs, hands pressed to its face. The feathers close around his eyes, the last bit of light sealed off as they lock together and he can see nothing but dark. He no longer feels the wind whirling around him, and his body, bruised and thin, seems to swell until he feels infinite in the suffocating shadows. 

 

He’s free.

 

.: after :.

 

The monster is silent. His hands shake, but he clutches the paper between his gloved fingers. He reads it again and again, the lonely tear stain in the perfect center, now dried by wind and time, is joined by his own. He’s never cried before. It’s weak. 

 

The hurt is unbearable. The monster falls to his knees, the precipice just behind him, but he doesn’t care. He clutches the note to his chest, as if somehow that will bring him some kind of healing, but he knows there is none. There is no healing, no escape from what he’s done. This is his fault. 

 

 

He’s knelt there for a long time now. He’s forgotten how long. The wind has died down, but it’s still cold. An emptiness tears him apart. He had everything he ever needed, and he threw it away. Treated that thing like shit, and it believed it. Drove itself to the brink, and it was because of him.

 

 

His chest isn’t quite as dark. He’s probably imagining it, but he feels something filling him, warm and forgiving and kind. A faint outline, familiar and smiling, shines in the corner of the monster’s eye. A mirage of grief, or a sincere act of forgiveness? He shakes his head, convinced it’s a hallucination, driven by pain. The figure holds out one hand, the voice faraway and peaceful.

 

“don’t cry, boss. someone really cares about you.”

 

The monster blinks. It’s gone.

**Author's Note:**

> A UnderFell fic attempt...
> 
> I might try to make a comic/animation out of this one, so that'll probably happen.  
> This one's a little shorter, but I hope you still enjoyed it.


End file.
